Christian Patience

By Bishop Ullathorne

William Bernard Ullathorne was a Benedictine monk and Roman Catholic priest who ministered in Australia from 1833 until 1840 and then returned to his native England, where he was ordained a bishop in 1847 and served as Bishop of Birmingham from 1850 until 1888. He is best known for his catechetical trilog

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sensus Fidelium Press
• Release date: Dec 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798869082619

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PREFACE

This volume completes the series originally contemplated. The Author's object has been to explain and inculcate those fundamental principles of the Christian virtues which, from their profundity, are least understood, but which most contribute to the perfecting of the human soul. The first volume, under the title of the Endowments of Man, establishes the doctrinal foundations of the Christian Virtues. The second, under the title of the Groundwork of the Christian Virtues, treats chiefly of Christian Humility as being the receptive foundation of the other virtues. This third volume treats of Christian Patience as being the positive strength and disciplinary power of the soul. The sovereign virtue of charity is explained throughout the three volumes. In the production of the last volume, the Author has found much less assistance from the Fathers of the Church and the great spiritual writers than in the two previous ones. As a rule, they have limited their instructions to that side of the virtue which is exercised under sufferings; and only a limited number of them, among whom I may mention St. Zeno, Tertullian, St. Gregory the Great, St. Bonaventure, and St. Catherine of Siena, have treated of that most important side of the virtue by which it gives strength and discipline to all the mental and moral powers, and perfection to all the virtues. One remark is due to the reader. The only solid way of explaining the virtues is by their principles and their mutual connections. But to do this effectually requires that the same principles be often repeated, as well to fix them in the mind as to show their connection with the practical details, and to give to those details greater light. In the preface to his translation of the famous treatise of Albert the Great, On adhering to God, Sir Kenelm Digby observes: He often repeateth the same thing, but still with some addition and further explication of the matter, to inculcate it the deeper.

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THE WORK OF PATIENCE IN THE SOUL

The trial of your faith worketh patience. And patience hath a perfect work; that you may be perfect and entire, failing in nothing.—St. James i. 3-4

The perfection of the Christian soul consists in that complete and exquisite charity whereby we love God above all things, and our neighbor as ourselves, for the love of God. This love, this charity that perfects the soul, is the sublimest gift that we can receive from God in this our exile, because God Himself is charity, and the life of God is charity. In partaking of His charity, according to our condition and capacity, as St. Peter says, We are made partakers of the divine nature, ¹ that is, by a created participation, and are made the children of God. For by charity God lives in us and we in Him. The divine gift of charity is the richest fruit of the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in most humble and patient charity gave His life to His Father, not only to deliver us from sin, but to obtain for us the supernatural life of charity. This life is the work of the Holy Spirit of God, dwelling in us, abiding in us, operating in us, uniting our life with the life of God, and raising our will into a holy co-operation with the unspeakable movements of His divinely given love. If anyone loveth Me, saith our Lord, he will keep My commandments, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him. ²

The love of charity is the greatest thing that we can give to God, because it originates with Him, and is moved by the action of His Holy Spirit; with it we freely give ourselves to God, and through its means we return all to Him that He has given to us.

The love of God is our spiritual life; it makes the will good, the affections good, the soul good, and the work of the soul good. St. Paul calls charity the bond of perfection; it unites us with God, unites us within ourselves, unites us with all spirits that love God, and with all things whatever that God loves. It is the old commandment, the new commandment, the greatest commandment, the comprehension of all the commandments, the life of all the virtues, the fulfilment of the whole law of God.

Hence all the other commandments, and all the other virtues by which the will of God is fulfilled, look to the love of God, are perfected by the love of God, and have their end in the love of God, for charity brings them all to God. Faith is the steadfast and unfailing light that guides the soul to the love of God; its divine truths are the reasons of that love, and they shine into the believing soul from the light of the Eternal Word Incarnate, and flow from the teaching of His Church. Hope wings our aspirations towards the Eternal Good which is promised to our love. Humility subjects our nature in the consciousness of its great needs to God, that we may be the subjects of His love. Charity makes us like to God by the flame of living, life-giving love, upon which we ascend in will and desire to Him whose nature is love, and whose love is His unspeakable goodness.

Whatever affection is sinful or dishonouring to God and to the soul is unworthy of the sacred name of love, because it is the enemy of charity. Its true name is cupidity, which is vile, or self-loving pride, which is a base perversion of our nature. These are affections that move against the light of faith and the very reason of things, and are hostile to the sovereign laws of love. But the charity of God makes the soul chaste, beautiful, and wise, whilst she reaches towards God with the arms of love through the very heart of grace. Countless considerations of God’s goodness, mercy, and compassion may join with the emanations of His charity to move our hearts to love Him; but when we have once entered into His goodness and mercy, have felt His love, and tasted His sweetness, we love Him for His own most pure and perfect excellence, and pass from sense to spirit, from self to God, and from thinking of Him to adoring Him, who lives for ever and ever. This is the infancy of beatitude; the first dawn of the principle of the glory to come; the beginning of heaven amidst the dreary obscurations and desolate confusion of this blind world.

In the Most Holy Trinity charity is the principle of the Divine Unity, and the substantial energy of the Divine Life. Yet who can form any true conception of that uncreated charity? In this life we can only know it by the sense we have in our spirit of the resemblance of the gift of charity to the Divine Giver. In the Holy Scriptures it is compared to a fire, but to a fire that is living, life-giving, and unconsuming. In Daniel’s vision of the Ancient of Days, the throne on which He sat is like flames of fire, and the wheels of it like a burning fire. In Ezechiel’s vision He is seated upon glowing cherubs moving on fiery wheels, to represent the unceasing action of His charity towards His intelligent creatures. The Prophet Daniel beheld a swift stream of fire that issued forth before Him; thousands of thousands ministered to Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before Him ³. When St. John beheld the glorious vision of the Son of God, His eyes were as a flame of fire ⁴. The Seraphs, those spirits nearest the throne of God, are, as their name signifies, spirits of fire, that is, of love. Our Divine Lord declared that He came to cast fire on earth, and promised that His disciples should be baptized with fire, that is, with the burning ardor of charity. Accordingly the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles from heaven in tongues of fire, thus outwardly expressing the interior ardor of charity that enkindled their hearts with the unconquerable love of God and of souls. That fire consumed the infirmities of their nature, and gave them strength to conquer in the power of God. Hence the prayer of the loving soul: Send forth the fire of Thy charity.

From charity God created all things, and for the sake of charity He moves all that He has created. He made the material world for the probation of souls, that in preferring their Creator to the things created they might prove themselves worthy of His love, and of receiving the rewards of love. For souls are made for the high and noble prerogative of receiving and returning the love of God. The saving providence of God moves through His creatures from the bosom of His charity. His mercies, which are above all His works, are the tender yearnings of His charity. He endures the evils of sin and ingratitude with the patience of His charity, waiting as a merciful Father the return of His children from evil to the good that He holds in readiness for their repentance.

Woe, then, to that false science which puts matter before spirit, sense before conscience, darkness before light, and the creature before God, and professes to find the cause of light and love, those sublimest gifts of the eternal charity of God, in the lowest and least spiritual elements of His creation. It is an awful proof of the extent to which cultivated intellects, lost to charity, can be gained to pride, and of the utter perversion of that light of intelligence which their minds have received from God. The fool said in his heart: There is no God. ⁵ The wise man exclaims: Without the charity of God we are nothing.

Not only is the charity of God all-embracing, but it is most abundantly communicative. The bosom of our Heavenly Father is open to all His children made in His divine image; to hear their sighs, to receive their desires, to accept their prayers, to relieve their wants, to deliver them from evil, to rescue them from misery. Then does He cheer them with light and enkindle their souls with love. He asks but their goodwill, and to their goodwill He gives all that they are capable of receiving. To the souls that love Him and seek His presence He sends down from His high heavens perpetual streams of light and grace, to draw them who are sanctified in the Blood of His Son more closely to His love, to perfect their charity.

In your love you must also of necessity love that charity by which you love God, because it is the most beautiful and inspiring of the gifts of God. What can be so beautiful, what so enlarging, what so delightful as that all-embracing charity which descends like fire from God, unites us in life with God, and also with all His good angels and saints, and with all pious souls on earth, in one sacred and living bond of union and communion of good? Every one who is brought out of the dark region of sin into the divine circle of universal charity is not only made beautiful in his soul by the love of God, but that soul partakes in her degree in all the charity with which she is in communion by her charity, be the possessors of that charity in heaven, on earth, or in the region of purification. For we share in the charity of all whom we love and who love us in God; and true charity loves all that God loves. What a sublime view does charity open into the communion of saints!

Nor does charity rest contented within this immense circle of spiritual life; but as the God of all charity is merciful, patient, and bountiful even to those who love Him not, and is always ready to pardon their sins, and to give them His unspeakable love, even so works the charity of God imparted to Christian souls. That charity imitates His goodness, His patience, His benignity, His bounty, and is patient, kind, and beneficent to all. Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh His sun to rise upon the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust. ⁶

But it is one thing to receive the divine gift of charity, another to have the virtue of charity, and another to have that virtue in perfection. For although the gift is the principle of the virtue, it is not the actual virtue, not that which makes charity our own. It can only become the actual virtue when the will enters into the gift, acts with the gift, and performs the interior and exterior works of charity. For the will is the seat and power of love; so that what the will desires the will loves, and what the will seeks above all things, the will loves above all things. When, therefore, the will enters into the grace of charity, and is clothed with it, it receives a divine power, exalting it above the order of nature, and giving to it the supernatural flame of divine love. The heart is the seat of our sensible affections, but these sensible affections are purified and made spiritual, when moved by the will, and clothed with charity towards God, the supreme object of our actions and desires. And it is by the pure and perfect exercise of the will, free from all mixture of what is contrary to the love of God, and exercised in the perfect gift of charity, that this holiest of virtues is made perfect.

We must also bear in mind this solemn truth, that the supreme and final object of all charitable service to our neighbour is God Himself. For all charity moves towards God, as its divine origin and final end. It moves as it were in a circle, from God to us, and from us to God, then to our neighbour, and through our neighbour to God, in virtue of the intention of charity. We thus imitate our Heavenly Father’s love to us, and join ourselves to that love, and are the ministers of His love, kind, patient, and forbearing to all from His gift; and especially when, for His sake, we give our help and service to those who are in affliction, in poverty, in ignorance, or in distress. This is a holy communion in which we partake in the good that we impart, and receive increase of love from the love we put forth, growing in the good that we communicate, and gaining strength from the resistance we make against the reluctance of our nature, and from the evil that we overcome in others.

All the glory of the King’s daughter is within. ⁷ This daughter of the King is the soul born of charity. The glory of that soul is in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, and in the principle and the promise of eternal glory. Charity is the living beauty of the soul that seeks God through all the virtues; it is the sweet odour of God, the living flame that breaks out of His truth, establishing order, purity, justice, goodness, and wisdom in the soul. It is the sacred fire placed by the Holy Spirit upon the altar of the heart. What is all philosophy compared to charity? Charity is the most practical philosophy, which from the heart illuminates the understanding, because it is the noblest action of truth, and reaches lovingly to the Divine Cause of all things.

But if the perfection of the soul consists in complete and exquisite charity, what room is there for other perfections? Why does St. James teach that patience hath a perfect work ⁸ Why does he insist that by patience we are made perfect and entire, failing in nothing? St. Paul enforces the same doctrine, where he says: Patience is necessary for you: that doing the will of God, you may obtain the promise ⁹ And our Blessed Lord gives us this solemn instruction: In your patience you shall possess your souls ¹⁰ What, then, is the work of patience in the soul?

In the first place, it must be observed that charity takes hold of the other virtues, animates them with her fire, inspires them with her motive, draws them into her service, and employs them, whether faith, hope, humility, patience, or whatever other virtue, for her own completion and perfection. In the second place, such is the irritability, restlessness, weakness, and inconstancy of the powers of our nature, considered in themselves, that they require the firm control of patience to conquer them, and to bring them into subjection to the sovereign virtue of charity. Hence, St. Paul teaches that charity is patient; ¹¹ and that it is patient charity which enables us to bear all things, and to endure all things. Hence, the Fathers and great spiritual divines have concluded that the grace of patience is given with the grace of charity, as well to protect it as to bring it to perfection. True patience for the love of God is therefore the highest test and most evident proof of the presence of a noble degree of charity; because patience is its perfecting quality, making it whole and entire, failing in nothing. It is the surest test, because it cannot be easily mistaken, as it can only be obtained, even with the help of grace, by dint of labour, self-combat, and effort; but we have the sensible result in the possession of one’s self and in peace of soul.

What do we find so difficult as to keep ourselves in our own possession, so that no part of our nature shall slip away from the command of the will, or from the empire of charity? Our Divine Lord seldom gives His reasons for His precepts, because they carry in themselves their own light; but He has given us the whole reason why we need the virtue of patience, when He tells us that it is by this virtue we hold the possession of our souls.

This vigorous virtue of patience is the spiritual remedy which God has provided against the weakness, perturbation, and inconstancy of our nature, exposed as it is to irritations, fears, temptations, cupidities, vanities, pride, and sadness. Every creature, by reason of its origin from nothingness, when left to itself, is exposed to division, dissolution, and failure; unless it receive a divine support, and a bracing strength of patience to hold it together, that it may endure and persevere. But in our fallen nature, and especially in that part of it which is material and animal, there is a darkness, a baleful fire of cupidity, a root of selfishness, and a restlessness, that war against the light and law of God in the soul, darken her light, dissipate and trouble her powers, and draw her away from the possession of herself. But the less she is in the possession of herself, the less capable is the soul of ascending to God, and therefore the less capable of knowing God and loving Him.

The soul cannot possess herself when she is held in the possession of her mortal senses, appetites, or passions, or when held in bondage to creatures that are less than herself, and that trouble, degrade, and divide the soul, and take off her mind and will from what is greater and better than herself. Nor can the soul possess herself within herself, because she is made for God, and without God for the chief object of her mind and affections she is poor, disturbed, and discontented. She can only possess herself in God through charity and patience, in love adhering to God, in patience persevering in that adherence despite of all the perturbations and fears of her inferior nature. Then will the soul find her powers united and in possession of her will by reason of her union with God; but this will only be in proportion to her patience.

Hence, St. John Climachus observed that to the spiritual man patience is more essential than food, ¹² and justly so; for food strengthens the body, and preserves it from weakness, but patience fortifies the soul, and without it no virtue can be firm and solid. But as we are bound to take more care of the soul than of the body, it is evident that we ought to be more solicitous for patience than for food. For, in the words of St. Peter Damian, the man whose patience breaks down may have other virtues, but he will never have their strength and solidity ¹³. Patience is concerned in all that we have to resist, in all that we have to deny ourselves, in all that we have to endure, in all that we have to adhere to, and in all that we have to do. This includes all human acts that bear the character of duty or devotedness, whether those acts be purely interior, or come forth into the exterior life and conduct. For wherever patience fails, the act is weak and the work imperfect.

This comprehensive view of the work of patience in man is enlarged upon by that profound thinker Tertullian in the following terms: "Patience protects the whole will of God in man and enters into all His commandments. It fortifies faith, governs peace, helps charity, prepares humility, conducts to penance, leads to confession, rules the flesh, preserves the spirit, bridles the tongue, controls the hand, breaks down temptations, expels scandals, and consummates martyrdom; it consoles the poor man, moderates the wealthy man, suffers not the infirm man to sink under his weakness, and allows not the strong man to consume his strength; it delights the believer, attracts the unbeliever, adorns the woman, and makes the man approved; it is loved in the youth, praised in the maturer man, and is looked up to in the aged man. Patience is beautiful in both sexes and at every age. The features of the patient one are calm and pleasant; the brow is pure, because free from the signs of sadness and of irritation; the eyes are peaceful; the mouth is sealed with discretion. ¹⁴

Yet, next to the virtue of humility, there is no Christian virtue that stands more in need of careful exposition than the virtue of patience. Although well known in a popular way, and on the surface, as it is opposed to anger, or as our sustainer under sufferings, it is but little understood as a fundamental virtue of the soul, and that only by those truly spiritual persons who are well exercised in interior self-discipline, of which this virtue is the basis. It is therefore of great importance that we should be instructed in its ways and in the methods by which it is obtained.

So intimate is the connection between patience and humility, that neither of these virtues can make much progress without the other; nor can charity advance towards its perfection without their aid. The seraphic St. Francis, so deeply founded in these two virtues, was wont to exclaim: Hail humility with thy sister patience! What humility begins patience consolidates. Humility purifies the soul, patience fortifies the will; humility subjects the soul to God, patience rests the soul on God; humility makes the soul simple and sincere, patience makes her firm and constant; humility keeps the soul in her just and true position, patience protects her in the peaceful possession of that position. It is not, therefore, humility alone, or patience alone, but humility and patience in their happy combination with charity, that establish the groundwork of the Christian virtues; and on this secure basis we are able to work out our perfection. Hence St. Catherine of Siena calls patience the pith and marrow of charity

If we examine the Eight Beatitudes, we shall find that patience is an essential constituent in every one of them; if we hear the spouse of Christ, the loving soul, declare in the Canticles, He hath set charity in order within me, ¹⁵ the order of charity is secured by patience. By patience was the Church of God built up; by patience every holy soul is built up. In his great vision of the combat throughout the ages of the Church with the world, St. John sums up the final triumph of God’s servants in these words: Here is the patience of the saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. ¹⁶ Not only does St.

Paul teach in various places that patience is the virtue that completes and perfects charity, but in a special prayer for his disciples he asks for them the combination of these two virtues: May the Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God and the patience of Christ. ¹⁷

If we contemplate the provident action of God as it moves through His creation, we everywhere see the signs of His divine patience, sustaining what is by nature feeble, upholding what left to itself must fall, enduring evil and disorder for the sake of final good, providing for all things according to their needs, and conducting all things to their destinies according to His eternal designs. If we contemplate the ways of God in souls, with what a sovereign patience He endures their wayward follies and ungrateful crimes, to bring them from their evil to His good! If we contemplate those souls themselves, or look carefully into our own, our experience of the weakness and inconstancy of our nature will teach us how greatly we stand in need of the gift and virtue of patience. This truth has been so admirably expressed by a holy Bishop and Martyr of the third century that we here give his words.

St. Zeno says: "Whilst we seek the blessed life with the earnest sighs of our nature, and look for it through the various virtues, they are all brought to their rest through patience. Without patience nothing can be conceived by the mind, nothing can be understood, nothing can be taught. For all things look to patience. Neither faith nor hope; neither justice nor humility; neither chastity nor honesty; nor concord; nor charity; nor any act of virtue; nor even the elements of nature; are able to hold together, or keep their consistency, without the nerve, restraint, and discipline of patience. Patience is always mature: it is humble, prudent, cautious, provident, and contented under every necessity that arises. Tranquil in the day of clouds and amidst the tempests of provocation, it allows nothing to disturb the serenity of the soul. The patient man knows of neither alteration nor regret. Who can say that he ever suffers loss? Whatever he has to endure, you will find him as complete at the end of his sufferings as though he had suffered nothing. How can we calculate the results of his patience? When he seems to have undergone defeat, we find he has got the victory.

No force, no violence, can drive patience from its position. Neither labor, nor hunger, nor nakedness, nor persecution, nor fear, nor danger, can move patience from its resolution. No power, no torments, no death, come it in whatever shape, no ambition, no enjoyment of felicity, can shake the constancy of patience. Robustly balanced in a certain elevated and divine temperance that calms the soul into peaceful moderation, patience abides immovable; and to enable it to master all difficulties, its first conquest is over the soul herself. The virtues cannot be virtues; nor can the state of the elements be lasting; nor can they flow in their well-known connection through their solemn circles, unless patience like a solicitous mother be the keeper of things and the regulator of their changes. ¹⁸

It is an obvious truth that what is weak by nature or constitution, and liable to fail, can only be made strong by the infusion of strength, or by adhering to what is strong and unchangeable. But moral strength, that which makes the soul strong, whether in action or endurance, is patience. Let us examine these principles by the light of the inspired Psalmist. When surrounded with trials, oppressed, and almost smothered with temptations, he feels all the weakness of his nature, and is troubled with disturbing fears. But he breaks away from them in this fervid cry: Shall not my soul be subject to God? For from Him is my salvation. For He is my God and my Savior: my protector, I shall be moved no more. The Hebrew text, as the commentators observe, is more forcible. It indicates a silent subjection to God that neither doubts, murmurs, complains, nor listens to temptation, and a resting on God as the rock of his strength. After describing his enemies rushing upon him, as though he were a leaning wall and a tottering fence, he thus addresses his own soul: Be thou, O my soul, subject to God, for from Him is my patience. For He is my God, and my Savior: He is my helper, I shall not be moved. ¹⁹

In other Psalms the Royal Prophet invokes the Almighty as his firmament and his refuge, and as the fortress of his strength; and calls God his patience, because from Him he derives the strength of patience, rests on Him as the foundation of His strength, and finds in Him his protection. In the seventieth Psalm he says: Be Thou to me a God, a protector, and a place of strength, that Thou mayest make me safe. For Thou art my firmament and refuge. . . . Thou art my patience, O Lord; my hope, O Lord, from my youth. ²⁰ He thus teaches, from his own interior experience as well as from his light, that our patience is derived from adhering to the unchangeable strength of God, and from receiving the gift of strength from His bounty. Rising in another Psalm to that more fundamental and steadfast patience which takes the name of fortitude, of which he has received the gift, the Sacred Singer says: I will sing Thy fortitude, and will extol Thy mercy ²¹. And in the consciousness that this noble gift is mainly given that by its force he may adhere to God, he says again: I will keep my fortitude to Thee ²².

We are here taught by the Holy Spirit, through the soul of David, that God is our patience, our fortitude, and our strength, provided we rest our souls on Him, adhere to Him, are subject to His strengthening influences, and work with them in loyal co-operation. Patience is so great a gift of God, observes St. Augustine, that it is even ascribed to Him who waits so long for the conversion of the sinner. God cannot suffer, yet though incapable of suffering He takes the name of patience. But as He neither suffers nor is subject to impatience, who can say what the patience of God is? It is as incomprehensible as His zeal, His anger, or anything of like kind. ²³

But if we consider patience as it is the enduring strength of charity, that admits not the entrance of evil within the divine circle of good, whilst it endures the existence of external evil for the sake of greater good, then we shall approach nearer to understanding the patience of God; because God is charity, and charity is patient. As what is weak of itself obtains strength by adhering to what is strong, the weak human will obtains strength to keep the whole man in discipline by adhering to God and receiving power to repel the movements of temptation and the risings of irritation, and to quiet the perturbations of the spirit, come from whatever cause they may. We are directed, says the profound Tertullian, "to exercise the authority of patience, not from any cynical affectation of equanimity (like the pagans), but from the divine disposition